1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to pointing devices and pointers and, more particularly, but without limitation, to pointing devices for use on touchscreen systems.
2. Background Information and Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, users interface with the desktop and operating system of their computer system using a "mouse". A mouse is a special hardware input device connected by a wire or infrared signal to the computer system. Typically, the mouse has one or more push buttons on its top and a roller on its bottom designed to roll along a surface next to the computer system. When the user moves the mouse's roller on the surface, a mouse pointer positioned on the computer system's display tracks the movement of the mouse's roller. When the user has positioned the pointer at a desirable location, such as over an object, the user clicks or multiple clicks, depending on how the mouse is programmed, one of the mouse push buttons to invoke or open the object.
The user may customize the operations of a mouse and mouse pointer. Through a customization menu maintained by some conventional operating systems, the user may customize, for example, the assignment of a single click of a first mouse button to invoke a first function and the assignment of a single click over a second mouse button to invoke a second function. Further, the user may customize the appearance of the mouse pointer on the display screen. For example, one user may prefer a small arrow to be the mouse pointer, while another user may prefer a large blinking arrow. Similarly, some users may prefer a fast mouse pointer (i.e., small movements of the mouse's roller cause large movement of the mouse pointer), while other users may prefer a slower mouse pointer. This feature is referred to as the "sensitivity" of the mouse pointer.
These types of mouse and mouse pointer behaviors may be customized for each individual user. However, most operating systems provide customization for only one user on one system. Therefore, for a multi-user system, the user must re-customize the mouse from the prior setting. This typically involves the user editing a mouse settings file or local database that maps button behavior to a specific function. Some systems, such as X11, have a special init file to do this.
Conventional mice suffer certain disadvantages and limitations. For example, the mouse is bulky, fixed in size so that very small hands or very large hands alike do not properly fit over the mouse, not permanently attached to the computer system, subject to corrosion, and requires the user to know the specific mouse behavior (e.g., which mouse button and how many clicks invoke a function). Accordingly, many customer oriented systems (e.g., ATM machines) and multi-user systems do not use mice. Rather, the trend for multi-user systems is to use touchscreens.
Conventional touchscreens allow the user's finger or a pointing device (e.g., stylus) to replace the conventional mouse and mouse pointer. Conventional touchscreens utilize, for example, heat sensitive, sound sensitive, pressure sensitive, or motion sensitive grids/detectors to detect a hand, finger, or stylus placed on the touchscreen. However, conventional touchscreens suffer certain limitations and disadvantages. For example, unlike a mouse pointer, fingers vary in size and, therefore, the desktop must place contiguous object icons and text far apart to accommodate the largest fingers. Also, the user cannot select the customization features as found in conventional mice and mouse pointers. Moreover, it is difficult to perform certain functions with touchscreens, such as cut and pastes, because there is only one pointing device and cursor.
Accordingly, there would be great demand for a new pointing device that uses touchscreen technology while allowing object icons to be placed close to each other and user customization. User customization should include the ability to split/breakaway the pointing device into several branches, thereby making functions, like as cut and paste, easier to perform.